"Once we decipher the signals in the brain, we can read
those thought patterns, and we translate those signals into a
language muscles can understand," Chad Bouton, the lead
technologist on the project, tells Tech Insider. "We send
electrical impulses to the forearm through the skin, so no second
surgery is needed. His muscles contract, and then the movement
begins."

Burkhart can also pour liquid from a bottle into a glass,
swipe a credit card, and pick up a cell phone. It's the
first time that a paralyzed person has been able to do such
precise motor control movements with their own hand.

It's a sign of how brain implants are moving out of science
fiction and into reality.

A 2009
study found that 5.6 Americans live with paralysis, or about
1 in 50 people. While attempts to repair the damage of spinal
cord damage have come up short, Burkhart's "neural bypass" — which sidesteps the
barrier presented by spinal injury with electronics — gives hope
that they could recover movement.

Bouton, a vice president at The Feinstein Institute for Medical
Research, says the success of Burkhart's implant shows how
"the sky is the limit" for this direction of inquiry.

Ian Burkhart plays guitar
with his thoughts.Ohio State
University

The chip in Burkhart's brain has learned the way that his brain
activates when trying to move his hand, and has tuned into those
electrical patterns, meaning that his brain can interact
directly with a computer. Since so much of human life
is dependent on the electrical signaling within our brains, the
potential applications of brain implants are huge.

In five or ten years, an improved version of the implant
that Burkhart has could provide sensory feedback: a sense of
touch and a sense of where the limb is in space. Prosthetics are
already getting there.

The chip could also be used in more brain-specific cases.

Bouton says that brain chips could be used in cases of stroke,
helping patients to re-learn the use of their hands. For now,
systems like this are restricted to a lab setting: there's a long
road of FDA approvals before domestic use is a possibility.

But as the technology matures, there's the potential for
restoring memory loss and enabling the formation of new memories
for people with brain damage.

"It's taking what we've learned in deciphering brain signals and
learning how to decode those signals and being able to bypass or
reroute signals in the nervous system," Bouton says.

It's a prospect that the Pentagon
is investing a reported $80 million into. At a
conference last September, the US Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA)
revealed that implants were able to detect brain
activity associated with forming and recalling memories.

The DARPA Restoring Active Memory initiative will build
computational models of how memories are formed and understand
"how targeted stimulation might be applied to help the brain
reestablish an ability to encode new memories following brain
injury," says DARPA
biotech head Dr. Justin Sanchez.

In other words, a brain implant could help people form new
memories, just as Burkhart's chip is helping him play Guitar
Hero.